Editor, The Beacon:
“Moms for Liberty (M4L)” is a national group that claims to advocate for parental rights and are “fighting for the survival of America.” Unfortunately, their actions contradict their stated beliefs. The liberties enshrined in the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights are targeted by this group.
M4L is on a crusade to ban books they deem dangerous or inappropriate for us and our children to read. They have anointed themselves as a new inquisition, with a God-given right to censor what they see fit. This ideologically driven group demands changes to our elementary-, middle-, high-school and college curriculums. The book bans they advocate seek to sanitize our libraries to fit their extremist views.
I suspect that many of these moms have never read the hundreds of books they want banned. They may have heard through their social-media contacts what needs censoring or, at best, read out-of-context tidbits that titillated their fantasies.
These moms are an extension of Trump’s MAGA agenda (“Make America White Again”), and DeSantis’ “Woke” presidential crusade.
The “parental rights” of this fundamentalist group put them in good standing with the Afghanistan Taliban. Censoring history is the hallmark of dictatorships. We should stand with Dwight D. Eisenhower, our 34th president. He asked us: “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing the evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go into your library and read every book.”
Chuck Oakwood
DeLand
Chuck, good letter. Thanks.
It is not a book ban if it only applies to what is put into PUBLIC school libraries. If someone tax dollars pay for the book, the storage of the book or the process of lending the book then those taxpayers have every right to speak their opinion to elected officials on what their tax dollars are buying.